Journey Through The Millennium
by Epsilon Zeta
Summary: A young boy's brief detour to grab coffee for a sleepy senior turns into the adventure of a lifetime. What will his eyes see as he steps foot in that wondrous world?
1. Boy Meets Princess

**Disclaimer: I only own my original characters.**

**First Step: Boy Meets Princess**

_It has been almost a month now and police are still no closer to solving the case about the missing Toei Company employee. Sasaki Motoharu. We caught up with the lead investigator Sakamoto Kenji this morning…_

"_We're completely baffled. There are no physical signs of a kidnapping and the surveillance footage just shows him walking around the corner, turning static for a second and then nothing. It's like he vanished into thin air."_

_Police are appealing for anyone to come forward if they have any information on the disappearance. Now on to business news and let's get a quick snapshot of the current numbers from the Tokyo Stock Exchange…_

"We're heading out!" Togashi Katsuo slipped on his shoes, grabbed his school bag and prepared to leave his home. He had a brown winter jacket and red scarf draped over his black winter school uniform. He had his black hair covered by a red hat as well for additional warmth.

"Take care!" called out his mother before turning back to the morning news program.

As the fifteen year old boy and his twelve year old sister exited the house, he closed the door behind him and began the walk to school on a cool crisp December morning. His thoughts went to Motoharu, the senior who had helped tutor him on some of his weaker academic subjects and prepare him well enough to pass the high school entrance exams. Katsuo found him a pretty cool guy. Heck, Motoharu had been nice enough to buy some Rider cards to use in the Kamen Rider Battle: Ganbaride game as a congratulatory gift once he found out that the younger boy enjoyed playing that game.

Katsuo had put those cards to good use both in the arcade and in his eighth grader delusions where he had the fantasy of being a dimension hopping traveler like Decade and DiEnd just like he had seen on the TV show and movies. He even spent allowance money on buying both the DecaDriver and DienDriver just so he could switch between playing the snarky hero and the trolling thief in an instant. These days, his schedule was pretty packed with studies, spending time at the Karate Club in school, training three times a week at his Kyokushin Karate dojo to prepare for his second dan black belt exam and just hanging out with his friends at the arcades, playing other games instead of the Kamen Rider card game.

Speaking of the Kamen Rider arcade game, the new one came out very recently and used a brand new set of cards. The ones from the Ganbaride game wouldn't work in the updated interface and he wasn't in the mood to shell out any money to get the cards needed to properly play Ganbarizing so he pretty much dropped that game. He did feel a bit sad about it, parting with something so close to his childhood but it was another sign that he was growing up. It was just like how he hadn't watched any Kamen Rider since Sept 2011 when Fourze began airing.

'Maybe I should marathon some of those shows one day during summer break.' After all, it was that Tokusatsu franchise that inspired his young self to study Kyokushin Karate seriously and aim to get a motorcycle driver's license.

"Ah, it's December! That means Christmas and New Year is around the corner along with the debut of the new Sailor Moon anime!" In a way, he envied his sister Takara. She had more free time than he did so she could just enjoy doing what she liked which was watching magical girl anime. Then again, as a twelve year old in her first year of junior high, her responsibilities wouldn't be as hectic compared to his workload as a first year high school student.

"I bet you 1,000 Yen that it'll be postponed again for another couple of months."

"Onii-chan, don't jinx it!" The sibling pair squabbled for a bit before encountering Katsuo's sleepy senior.

"Good morning…" The other boy yawned loudly and scratched his oddly shaped brown hair in an effort to stay awake.

"Sagara-sempai, you've been playing games late again?"

"I had to! 'Nobunaga no Yabō: Sozou' just got released yesterday!" The sleepiness seemed to disappear temporarily as Sagara talked about his favourite game. "Of course I would be up all night playing it! Still got a long way to go before finishing the first route though… man, I wish I didn't have to go to class!"

"Then grab yourself a coffee before you go. Otherwise, you'll just stumble all over the place." Katsuo moved over to help his senior keep up right.

"Thanks! So yeah, Sozou really looks a lot crisper in terms of graphics when compared to the predecessor." And there went Sagara, talking about his favourite game again while Katsuo and Takara tried to grin and bear it.

As the trio reached an intersection with a traffic light, Katsuo spotted a vending machine to the side. "Takara, you and Sagara-sempai go on ahead. I'll go buy a coffee for him."

"Katsuo, you're such a thoughtful kohai!" If this were an anime, exaggerated tears would be streaming down Sagara's face.

"Yeah, yeah…"

"So in any case," began Sagara as he crossed the street with the middle school girl. "It seems that the game's recruitment conditions are a bit stricter…"

'Uweeeh… is this how I sound when I talk about magical girl anime?' Takara made a mental note to thank her older brother for putting up with it for so long. He really did spend a lot of time with her and on her hobbies, even joining in on an original Sailor Moon anime marathon, when he made it clear that magical girl shows weren't exactly his cup of tea.

The loud screeching of a truck jarred her thoughts back to reality before she felt herself thrown to the ground thanks to Sagara shielding the both of them from the sudden accident from behind. When they both got up, they saw that the vehicle smashed up a part of the sidewalk and some vending machines located there and is now tilting on the right side. It must have been making an extremely sharp right turn and lost control.

Wait a minute… Katsuo had gone to get coffee for Sagara just a second ago. "No… it can't be…"

"Takara-chan, wait here!" Meanwhile, the older boy grabbed his phone and dialed 119 while keeping one arm firmly on the girl so that she didn't go towards the accident scene. "Hello? I'm reporting an accident! Please send a fire truck and ambulance here as soon as possible!"

"ONII-CHAN!"

* * *

"Have all the preparations been made?"

"The drones are on standby and the warheads have been loaded." The activity in the observatory was rather busy with activity as the crew of scientists worked on their task. The spatial anomaly was scheduled to appear again within the vicinity of the Moon and they wanted to be ready to take care of it as per the Queen's orders.

"Anomaly is estimated to appear again in sixty-four seconds," reported another technician.

"Good." Sailor Mercury kept her eyes on her personal computer as it fed her data from the drones when she heard the door from behind her slide open to reveal a familiar figure. "Your Majesty…!"

"Hello, everyone." She was as graceful as ever, even with her long hair in that dumpling style. Her attire consisted of a simple one piece white dress which left her shoulders bare. A special marking shaped like small crescent moon was visible on her forehead. "I take it that everything is going well?"

"Yes, we have everything under control. You did not have to leave your event."

"It's only for a few moments." Besides, it was best if the Queen stayed nearby in case an emergency came up that required her power.

"We have contact!" All eyes turned towards the main monitor in the room which displayed the depths of space and the fabric folding oddly.

"It's unfolding similarly to the same phenomenon observed in the sun last week," murmured Mercury. That phenomenon only occurred once and had been very brief in how long it had been active but it had been enough to unnerve the Queen. Enough to warrant taking a more active role in investigating future spatial anomalies. "Have the drones switch out of surveillance mode and prepare the warheads to neutralize the anomaly."

A few seconds of frantic keying later, the drones did their work and reset the space fabric to normal but not before a small spark of light seemed to escape from it and head towards the castle. "Something's come out of it!"

"Trace the trajectory!" ordered Mercury.

"Tracing… it's heading towards the Northern Imperial Garden!"

"Serenity!" Both the Queen and her Senshi looked alarmed for a moment before Mercury quickly recovered and began searching her communications channel.

"I'll contact the nearest Senshi in the area and get them over there to cover the area and protect the Princess."

* * *

It felt warm again.

Different from what he had felt just a second ago when his entire being got plunged into that hole of nothingness just microseconds before he would have died from that reckless truck. That cold nothingness gnawed at his soul for the duration that he had been in it. His thoughts at the time turned towards thinking that maybe it would have been better if he died back at that vending machine. That way, he wouldn't have had to enter that cold void.

But that passed now. There was a sense of warmth here.

With his sense of touch starting to come back to him, he finally became aware that he had been gripping something tightly in his right hand. The last memory of what he had been doing came back to him. 'Ah, right… I was getting a coffee.'

Katsuo had been expecting the can in his hand to be crushed and for his right sleeve to be drenched in warm liquid. Instead of a can though, he had been gripping a deck of cards. His Rider Cards to be precise that he used for the first Ganbaride game. He had been meaning to put them away since the old game got swapped in for the new one at the end of October but he must have forgotten to remove them from his coat pocket.

His grip relaxed a bit but he still felt sick to his stomach. The air felt weird here which made it harder for him to breathe and his hands were shaking. Right now, he just wanted to curl up in a futon or a bed and not come out until this fatigue had passed.

His hearing picked up a pair of approaching footsteps along with the voices of two young ladies. "Ah, over there!"

"Princess, don't get too close! It could be a trap!"

"Are you alright?" He couldn't fully open his eyes. All he could see was a bit of a white dress which looked quite regal. With whatever strength he had at the moment, his vocal chords managed to get a single word out before he passed out.

"H…h-help…"

* * *

It had been thirty six hours since the Princess had found the strange boy who slipped into a coma. While he had been placed in a medical ward, the Queen had gathered her trusted advisors along with the four Senshi posted at the palace for a meeting. All of them had been provided with details on the patient and those odd looking cards on him through their personal terminals. "Mercury, what's the condition of the young man?"

"Stable for the moment, your Majesty. Compared to when he arrived at the palace in the first place, it's a big improvement." Mercury tapped a few buttons on her personal computer to summon a holographic display of the patient's vital signs. "Based on the readings from that time, his nervous system had been highly stimulated and caused him to develop a case of acute stress disorder. You might also want to know that the Princess has been checking in on him regularly."

"He did reach out to her for help before falling unconscious," admitted Sailor Mars, recalling the incident she witnessed. "She must have felt responsible for his well-being here. I'm a little surprised to see that she's taking this responsibility rather seriously considering her preference to daydream about a certain someone."

Sailor Jupiter took this information into account. "Still, what if it's a trap to get her to lower her guard and then strike?"

"I can't detect any evil presence in his soul. In fact, I felt the presence of noble spirits in some of those cards he had been carrying," replied the Fire Senshi. "I'm certain that they helped shield him from the trauma of being suddenly transported to the palace."

"Wait a second. You're saying that his cards have noble spirits living in them?" Jupiter paused for a moment before flipping through her terminal and landing on an image of a card which showed a skull faced helmet wearing a hat. "Even though this guy looks like a bad guy, you're saying he's good?"

"Yes, that's one of the cards which housed a noble spirit," replied Mars in a slightly irritated tone.

"Mars only said that she felt the presence of noble spirits in some of those cards, not all of them. Besides, you should know better to judge someone based on appearances," said Sailor Venus from her side of the conference table.

"So if what I'm understanding is correct," began the Queen. "The spirits of that boy's equivalent Senshi inhabit those objects?"

"That's right. And it seems that they've transferred themselves into the Central Mainframe of the Castle's main computer system just last night." Mercury briefly brought up some video footage to help further explain. "When we brought the cards over to decipher if there was any meaning in those barcodes, they all vanished into what looked like streams of data before directly entering a terminal. So far, all they did was upload some new files in an encrypted folder on the hard drive. It hasn't affected any other functions the system looks after so I've delayed attempting to hack into it until I hear your opinion on what action to take regarding that folder."

"I see." The Queen took some time to consider this before coming to a decision. "We'll have to see what possible sub-systems could be affected by us trying to forcefully break into that folder."

"Agreed and-" Mercury's computer beeped briefly, alerting her of a status update of their guest. "It looks like our patient is recovering consciousness."

* * *

The first thing that Katsuo noticed when he woke up was how comfortable the bed was. Since when did hospitals in Japan have the budget to buy comfy beds? If anything, the surplus money should have went into improving the quality of care and buy extra equipment to save a person's life instead of going towards making a person more comfortable.

The boy also felt the wires taped to his body, obviously there to monitor his vital signs. He wouldn't be able to wander off very far from this room. He would have to be careful when moving about.

When Katsuo sat up from the bed, he noticed the wall structure looked fancier than what he had been expecting. The walls and the floor seemed to have been built out of marble or something along those lines. And he had no neighbour next to his bed which was odd since hospitals would normally have a few beds lined up together for conserving space and increasing the efficiency of the service. He hoped that his parents didn't dip deep into their savings just to put him in a private hospital luxury suite and get him the best care.

'My folks, Takara… I need to get a hold of them!' He didn't have anything on him since he was dressed in a patient robe. With no cell phone, he would have to use the hospital phone to call home. Hopefully, they wouldn't charge for that as well.

The sound of the door opening got his attention and he turned to see his visitor who greeted him warmly. "Hello there. I see you're looking better."

Katsuo's mind went blank for a second as the person who entered the room looked like a fourteen year old girl with blue eyes, a white dress, a gold bracelet on her right wrist, blonde hair in a meatball style with a pair of pearl accessories in her hair and a golden crescent moon on her forehead. She seriously looked like that Princess Serenity character from that Sailor Moon anime he watched with his sister. "Thanks for your concern. By the way, that's a really great cosplay you have there. And you really nailed that voice."

His visitor had a puzzled look. "Cosu… pluh-ay?"

The boy nodded. "Yeah. You look exactly like that Princess Serenity."

"But I am Princess Serenity."

"Uh huh… and I'm Kamen Rider." Okay, it was obvious he must be dreaming or hallucinating or something along those lines. Either that or he encountered someone who had delusional eighth grader syndrome.

"Why don't you believe that I'm Princess Serenity, Kamen Rider-san?" She frowned for a moment as she thought about something. "Should I be calling you Rider-san or Kamen-san?"

"Y-you… I… gah… ARGH!" Good grief, this meatball head actually believed his name was Kamen Rider! That settles it. From now on, he is no longer going to marathon magical girl anime with his sister! Geez, how long will this delusion of his play out and drive him nuts?

"Serenity, there you are."

"Mother…" The woman who entered the room looked virtually identical to the Princess except older with a different dress on and silver hair colour.

"And let me guess… you're Queen Serenity and right now, I'm on the Moon Kingdom?"

The good Queen nodded. "Yes, that's correct. If you don't believe me, you can take a look out the balcony."

With some effort and being mindful of the wires, Katsuo moved his body off the bed and reached the balcony before he took a good look outside to see the planet Earth in the distance in all its blue glory. 'Okay, time to snap out of this delusion…'

He pinched himself on the cheek a few times to wake himself up from this bizarre dream but no matter what happened, his view didn't change and he still saw the Earth in the distance.

'So I really am in the Silver Millennium…' Incoming freak out in three…

Two…

One…

"HOLY SHIT!"

**TO BE CONTINUED…**

**There are plenty of Rider stories taking place in the modern era or Crystal Tokyo but I haven't seen any take place in the Silver Millennium/Moon Kingdom so I decided to give this a whack and spin this off of my Bujin Gaim storyline in a sense. Standard Rider fic policy applies in that this will only be worked on when I need a break from my main Rider story which is Bujin Gaim. Priority might shift if this gets plenty of reviews so if you want to see more of this, you know what to do.**


	2. To Write a New Legend

**Disclaimer: I own nothing about Sailor Moon or Kamen Rider. I only own my original character.**

**Second Step – To Write a New Legend**

"I can't believe the nerve of that guy! He swore right in front of the Princess and the Queen within two minutes of waking up!" exclaimed Mars while she and the other Inner Senshi kept a watchful eye on Princess Serenity who was taking a walk through the palace garden.

"Aren't you being a bit too harsh there?" countered Venus while leaning against the gazebo's railing.

"Such a reaction is only natural if one were suddenly transported to an alien environment," explained Mercury. "I would have been more concerned if he didn't react that strongly."

"Still, he popped up at exactly the same time as that strange phenomenon just over a day ago. There has to be a connection." The intuition of the Fire Senshi rarely failed her and she was certain of at least that much.

"Perhaps if we were able to know exactly what those cards of his did earlier, we might have a better understanding of things." A thought then came to Jupiter. "Hey, maybe he can help fix that problem! Does anyone know where he went?"

"Her Majesty is accompanying him around the palace for the time being," replied Sailor Venus, letting a little discomfort show up on her face.

"By herself?" Mars looked a bit alarmed upon hearing that.

"Well, she does have Luna and Artemis with her…"

There was a long pause before the raven haired Senshi responded to her blonde teammate's remark in a flat tone. "That really doesn't make me feel any better."

"Her Majesty will be fine. She can look after herself. Besides, didn't you report that there were some 'noble spirits' inhabiting that young man's cards?" asked Mercury with her sharp memory bringing up that conversation from earlier. "So you shouldn't have any reason to believe that he's a spy or some other secret enemy agent."

"That's true," admitted Mars before sighing once. "I guess I'm just being cautious."

"Well, you wouldn't be you if you weren't cautious," snarked the Senshi of Lightning causing the other female to glare.

"Can it, Jupiter."

* * *

Luna normally didn't disagree to the ideas of the Queen however this latest idea was definitely one that she made her objections clear on. She can understand that her Majesty wanted to demonstrate to the boy that this new world he arrived in was not hostile to him in any way and that he should have nothing to fear from them. But giving a palace tour to a possible enemy spy was probably not the best way to go about it.

"Luna, you're over thinking things. If the Queen and the Princess feel that he's not a threat, shouldn't you give him the benefit of the doubt?" asked her fellow feline companion, Artemis.

"Not everyone is as easy going as you." At least, the tour areas were chosen carefully with plenty of guards posted around.

"It's not a matter of me being easy going. You don't trust their instincts?"

"What if the boy has a sleeping evil inside of him just waiting for the right time to awaken and strike her down?" countered Luna, wishing Artemis would see her view point properly.

"That's really stretching things there…"

While the two advisors bickered in the background, Queen Serenity concluded the castle tour. "So you see that you have nothing to fear from us. There is no need to be nervous, Togashi Katsuo."

Katsuo, who now wore his student uniform, fidgeted a bit. "To be honest, my nervousness is driven more by a feeling that I don't belong here. First of all, I'm a commoner so mingling with royalty is already mind boggling. Second, I'm not a native of this world or this timeline!"

A thoughtful look appeared on the monarch's face. "So you come from the future?"

"Sorta…" He took a deep breath to calm his thoughts down a bit. "In any case, I was hoping I could make a visit to the Time Gate and see Sailor Pluto. She's my best chance of returning to where I belong."

"You know about the Time Gate and Sailor Pluto? That's not exactly common knowledge." If Queen Serenity had been surprised, she hid it very well with her tone still sounding as normal as ever.

"I only knew of it thanks to a certain iconic story popular in my time." He made a note to himself that when he got back, he would treat his little sister for the rest of her life to any dessert she wanted. "Perhaps we can make an exchange of information?"

"I'm listening." She was hooked so all he needed was one last push to buy her over.

"If you take me to the Time Gate and let me speak with Pluto in person, I'll tell you what I know of the Moonlight Legend that's told in my world." Katsuo paused briefly to let everything hit home for the Queen. "About the one called Sailor Moon."

"By Sailor Moon, you mean…?" The elder Serenity took a bit of time before she finally started piecing it together. "You mean Princess Serenity?"

"Correct. Tales about her life and her heroic deeds were told and spread throughout my country and eventually the world. As I said, I am willing to tell you more about them once I have a chance to speak with Pluto. Do we have an agreement?"

"You certainly know how to put an intriguing offer on the table." A faint smile appeared on the monarch's lips. "Very well. I accept."

* * *

Within moments, he was led deeper into the Moon Castle and soon found himself in some strange dimension before noticing the silhouette of a door in the distance along with a Senshi. The door was decorated with the phases of the moon and had a giant elaborate frame around it.

Sailor Pluto looked pretty identical to her anime version with black being her dominant colour on the choker, collar, the glove elbow fittings, skirt, and boots. The accent colours were garnet (spotted on the tiara gem, earrings, and gem attached to choker) and dark maroon (bows, which were a much darker shade of brownish purple than her garnet accents). Her earrings were shaped like a thick downward-pointed arrow. Her collar did not have any stripes. Her choker had a garnet gem dangling from it. She didn't have any shoulder pads. As for her eyes, they were red while her long hair was dark green. And of course, she had the Garnet Rod by her side.

"Your Majesty? Is there something the matter?" Pluto's eyes immediately darted to the boy. "Who is your guest?"

"If anything, I would say he is Princess Serenity's guest. She's the one who helped him when he had arrived unexpectedly in the palace during the spatial phenomenon that took place not too long ago." The Queen went on to introduce him. "His name is Togashi Katsuo. As you can see, he is not from around here."

Pluto immediately caught on. "An alternate timeline if I'm not mistaken."

"Would you be able to determine a way to return me back to my timeline?" asked Katsuo in a hopeful tone.

"If you're already aware of the concept of multiple timelines, then you should realize that navigating the Corridor of Space-Time is no easy task. Even if all of the palace's computer systems were dedicated to isolating one timeline out of an infinite number of possibilities, the task may never be complete."

He knew this had been a long shot but still, there had to be something he could do. Another thought came to him, thanks to his inner Kamen Rider fanboy reminding him of that particular possibility. "Maybe you could grant me the ability to travel between timelines and let me search for home?"

"Even if the rules allowed me to, I cannot do that in good conscience," replied the Time Guardian. "There is a fairly high possibility that during your travels, you may enter hostile and dangerous timelines. It would be safer if you remained here."

"B-but I can't! I don't belong here!" shouted Katsuo as some of the stress started getting to him. "I… I don't want to interfere with the natural development of the story!"

Pluto looked puzzled. "Story?"

"He's referring to something called the Moonlight Legend which is told in his timeline, which apparently describes events in Princess Serenity's future," explained the Moon Queen.

There was a brief pause before Sailor Pluto spoke again. "May I have a word with the boy in private, My Queen?"

Seeing the need for privacy, Queen Serenity headed out. "Once you're done, please send him to me."

Now that they were alone, Pluto spoke to Katsuo in a disarming tone to put him more at ease. "What exactly do you know about the future?"

"Not specific dates. Just general battles and how they progressed." He was still being a bit vague there but she could understand that now that she had a better idea of his position.

"So you're aware of the Dark Kingdom's future attack on the palace?"

Katsuo nodded numbly. "Did you tell Queen Serenity about that?"

"She knows about the event and is taking action in a discreet manner." It made sense that the monarch would want to keep this a secret and avoid worrying her subjects and her daughter.

"Whatever she does won't be enough. It was written that the Dark Kingdom's assault was successful and it resulted in Queen Serenity being forced to use the Ginzuishou to seal them away. She also sent everyone who died in the attack to the future to be reincarnated. That included all of her subjects, the Senshi and even her own child and the Prince of Earth. The seal she placed on the Dark Kingdom wasn't fully perfect though and they eventually reawaken and start causing havoc in the modern time. That's when the reincarnated Princess Serenity takes up the mantle of Sailor Moon to fight them, guided by Luna."

'I see. So the Silver Millennium will be…' Pluto then noticed the posture of the boy had slipped a bit. "What's wrong?"

"If I disturb the flow of history, won't I be rejected by the world? I'm an abnormality here." He remembered seeing Decade face this at one point in that TV show and the fact that this is happening to him for real scared him silly. "Will you be the one who erases me?"

The Time Guardian on the other hand was a bit alarmed at the boy's thought processes. "Why are you saying something like that? I don't know about the world, but we have no intention of driving you out."

Katsuo blinked in surprise. He had been certain that he pegged her character as a well-intentioned extremist who would be willing to take one life to save others. Or maybe he had been reading too many of those fics on the internet. "You don't think I'm a disruption to…?"

"The fact is that you are essentially Princess Serenity's responsibility. As much as you wish to deny it, you are a part of this current timeline." She paused for a moment to let this sink in before continuing. "Now you have two choices in front of you: Either live a quiet life in the Silver Millennium and let things unfold naturally or you can put forward your best efforts to save the Silver Millennium from destruction if what you say is true."

Katsuo shook his head rapidly, while mind boggled at what Pluto had suggested to him. "I can't do that! I'm just a normal kid! I get up in the morning, I put my pants on one leg at a time, I study hard at school and train hard at the dojo, and I go to sleep at night. I am nowhere near qualified to be deciding whether one timeline is more proper than the other!"

"Nonetheless, you have been put into a very unique position, young man. I am bound to my post and cannot aid Serenity when the time comes. It is up to you to decide on what you want to do." And with that, he found himself transported back outside to the surface levels of the Moon Palace and where Queen Serenity was waiting.

"I trust your discussion was productive?"

"She gave me some things to think about." Katsuo then bowed in front of the Queen. "Thank you for letting me speak with her. It was very helpful. Now I'll uphold my end of the deal."

"You don't have to tell me right now-"

"Please. I would rather get this done sooner rather than later. And I would rather keep this conversation between the two of us."

"… Very well. We can discuss this in one of my private dens."

* * *

A moment later, he found himself sitting down at a table in a fairly large room which stored a variety of books and study material. There were also a few portraits around of both Princess Serenity and Queen Serenity.

After Katsuo made himself comfortable, he began to speak. "Well, I guess I would begin by saying that it took a good amount of time before she got comfortable fighting evil by moonlight. Then again, you can say that about anybody just starting out learning how to be a warrior. Her skill level took time to develop and she faced powerful adversaries from day one. She fought the Dark Kingdom, the Black Moon Clan, the Death Busters, the Dead Moon Circus and even Chaos itself and she still pulled through."

"So the other Senshi trained her well?" asked the Queen.

He shook his head. "No. She virtually did this all by herself. Luna provided the initial transformation gear but that was it. She basically learned by experience and it was her heart that drove her forward. It was what bound the Senshi when they woke up and if anything, it was what set her apart from other people on Earth."

"Earth?!" Her maternal instincts began to stir at that thought but she forced herself to stay calm.

"At the time, the world wasn't as kind a place as one might expect. There were many problems and many people were cynics who relied on logical solutions, calculating acceptable losses. With Sailor Moon though, she projected such a strong sense of idealism. As flawed and naïve as it is, it's something wonderful to strive towards even in the face of doubt. For example…" Katsuo's memories drifted back to a particular favourite episode of Sailor Moon. "During the conflict with the Death Busters, there was an evil that possessed the life of a little girl. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto were in favour of eliminating her in favour of saving the planet. They were willing to live with that but not Sailor Moon. She strongly believed that having the world saved at the expense of that girl's life would have been a mutilation of her soul and that of humanity's. There's not much else to say other than after resolving the situation with Chaos, she found her happy ending. That's pretty much the condensed version of the legend and I bet you must have a ton of questions."

Queen Serenity took a moment to digest this information and organize her questions. "What did you mean earlier by the Senshi waking up? Why were they put to sleep?"

He took a deep breath before continuing. "You can say that there's a bit more to this tale that you need to know about. I remember a particular quote that accurately summarizes things. 'Creation cannot come without destruction.'"

"Yes, I'm familiar with that concept. It's even in place in the Moon Kingdom with Saturn being the agent of destruction to pave way for new life and…" She trailed off, starting to connect dots together.

"The legend of Sailor Moon was born from the remains of the Silver Millennium. Every inhabitant died from the Dark Kingdom's attack and got reborn on Earth thanks to your final sacrifice. In Princess Serenity's case, she was reborn as Tsukino Usagi and even though she eventually regained her memory back as the Princess, she embraced being a normal girl able to live with her friends and loved ones."

The elder Serenity held her hands in her lap. "So that's how it is."

"But now that I reflect on what Sailor Moon did in her story, I want to find a way to write that legend without sacrificing all of this. If Usagi were here in my shoes, I would think she would be willing to do this, even if success meant that her life would not exist as she knew it." Katsuo stood up from his spot, now seeing things fall into place. "I guess this is what Pluto meant by me making that choice."

A knock at the door interrupted the conversation, followed by a court messenger's voice. "Excuse me?"

"Yes, what is it?" Considering the heavy discussion earlier, the reprieve was welcomed by the Queen.

"Sailor Mercury would like to see you, Your Majesty. This is in regards to the encrypted folder. It's starting to act strangely."

Katsuo looked puzzled. "Encrypted folder?"

"Yes. The strange cards you had with you vanished into data streams and entered our systems," explained Queen Serenity, recalling what she had been told earlier.

Well, that explained the missing cards. "In that case, can I come take a look at this as well? If my cards are causing this, then I have a responsibility to try and fix it."

Within moments, the pair made their way to the room which housed the Moon Kingdom's servers which was massive. Katsuo had been expecting to enter an intensely warm environment here but instead, he still felt comfortable at room temperature. 'It must be their magic at work keeping things cool.'

It didn't take long for them to reach the primary server where Sailor Mercury was hunched over a workstation. Her hairstyle and colour seemed more natural compared to her look in the live action Sailor Moon show but her face definitely had some resemblance to the actress who played her. Come to think of it, didn't that actress start showing up in a recent Kamen Rider show?

Upon detecting her guests, Mercury took a moment to step away from the station and greet them. "Good day, Your Majesty. Young man, I'm glad to see you up and about."

"Thank you for your concern."

With the pleasantries exchanged, Mercury immediately brought up a status screen which displayed a simple prompt for a password. "This occurred only a short moment ago. We haven't even touched it since those strange cards entered our systems directly. It must have been some automatic executable program, set to go off at a predetermined time."

"So my Rider cards caused this?"

Queen Serenity then noticed a pair of icons to the blank field with one looking like an arrow and the other a question mark. "Try clicking on the question mark icon. It could be a password hint."

Mercury did so and a sequence of numbers popped up. '453145? What could that mean?'

"Wait a second!" Katsuo's exclamation interrupted Mercury's train of thought. "That's the password hint I use on my current computer at home! May I…?"

"Go ahead. Just place your hand on the crystal and it will generate an interface for you to enter in your password," said the Intellectual Senshi while making room for the boy. Once he got a holographic keyboard much like the one at home, he typed in his password:

**DECADE2009**

The password prompt closed before the entire screen changed to show two giant windows side by side with one displaying an advanced looking technological handgun along with data on how to manufacture it. The other window showed a full blue and black suit with barcode armour covering the front part of the helmet and the upper torso. The suit looked like it was linked to a card that would act like a key by the way the technological specification drew the connection to the gun on the other side of the screen.

"These are weapon specs?"

"No…" Queen Serenity turned to the boy who looked completely in shock. "It's the DienDriver. Those are actual specs for the DienDriver! Whoever has that would be able to transform into Kamen Rider Diend!"

"Is that so?" After some thought, the monarch turned to Mercury. "How soon can we construct this DienDriver for Katsuo?"

She briefly scanned the specs with her personal visor before responding. "There doesn't seem to be anything in here that would be difficult to replicate or obtain. I would estimate 3-4 days at most to assemble this and create the card key."

"Are you serious, Your Majesty? You're going to…?"

Queen Serenity turned to Katsuo with a smile. "If you're serious about finding another way to create that legend, then you will need the proper tool to help you accomplish your task. What do you say?"

There really was only one answer here in his mind. "Hell yes!"

"…" One awkward silence later…

"… Oh, wait. I just swore in front of royalty again. I am so sorry!"

And this was met by an amused laugh from the Queen while Sailor Mercury merely gave a tired sigh, already knowing that they were in for an interesting time with the boy around.

**TO BE CONTINUED…**

**Wow, that took forever to get out. To be honest, I had the rough scenes in my head but laying them out to a point that I could see as acceptable really took me a while. Hopefully, things can get easier as I go along. **

**Instead of the classic/cliché toy becomes a real Driver, the Driver is actually built in the Moon Kingdom. Considering that they were able to build Mercury's visor and minicomputer, the DienDriver shouldn't be too farfetched for them.**

**Also, pondering on whether to give a Decade card to Katsuo as an alternate transformation. If Decade can go cyan by using the Diend card in the DecaDriver, then the reverse should be true with Diend going magenta. Question is, how will his abilities differ using the Decade card with the DienDriver?**

**As usual, this story will be considered low priority and worked on when I feel like it. The only way to possibly change my mind on this is to leave plenty of reviews so if you want more of this, click that button and type away.**


	3. Proof of Metallia

**Disclaimer: I own nothing about Sailor Moon or Kamen Rider. I only own my original character.**

**Third Step – Proof of Metallia**

It didn't take long for Katsuo to settle down into a daily routine.

First, he planned to keep in physical shape so he would work out in the morning and continue his training. Because of that, Queen Serenity assigned Sailor Jupiter as his workout and sparring partner. Just as expected of the source material, she was a really nice girl when she wasn't handing him his ass on a silver platter during their practice matches. His pride as a black belt took a hit but he had to remind himself that this was Sailor Jupiter here who pretty much had far more combat experience and ability. At least she took the time to give him some tips to better handle himself in a fight and even treated him to her specialty workout recovery lunches which were seriously tasty.

To his surprise, Jupiter told him that the Moon's gravity had purposely been modified by the Queen to match Earth's gravity. Considering that the mission of the Moon Kingdom was to help guide the evolution of humanity on Earth, it made sense. After all, there would be an occasional need for some Moon Kingdom scientists to visit the planet and make observations on how humans were living and innovating. It also explained how Princess Serenity had no issues moving around when she snuck off to Earth to see Prince Endymion.

Afternoons were spent studying the operating manual for the Diendriver which Sailor Mercury had printed off for him shortly before her project team went to work on constructing the device. Princess Serenity often stopped by to see how he was doing during this time. Even though she could only stay for a few minutes before heading off to her next activity, it was still nice of her to check in on him.

While going over the manual, Katsuo could start seeing the safety precautions listed in there and connected them to the Decade show. For example, three Rider cards were the recommended limit when summoning multiple Riders at once and it was recommended to cock back the Driver after each Rider card was loaded. Those recommendations would reduce wear and tear on the device. Considering that Kaito was always on his own and had nobody to perform any sort of maintenance on his Driver, it made sense that he would take the time to cock back the Driver when summoning Riders. There were exception to that rule though but that was probably because he was pressed for time.

He could also see the reason for how both Decade and Diend always seemed to pick the card they needed for the job. Based on the helmet specs, there was a component built in that could sense the user's emotional state and read their thinking processes before converting the information into usable data. The data is then processed by the suit and passed on to the card storage area so that the next card that was drawn there would be the card that the user feels they need for the situation.

During the evenings after supper, he would take one lesson in manners and etiquette with Luna. Since he was going to be mingling with the upper classes, he needed to learn how to behave appropriately. The cat advisor also made it her personal mission to break Katsuo out of his habit of swearing in front of others, especially royalty. To his defense though, it only happened twice when his mouth was racing faster than his mind and to be absolutely fair, he never expected that he would suddenly be dropped in a fictional universe. Luna didn't care though and she promised that if he kept up this cursing habit, she would scrub his mouth with a bar of soap.

That was how his day typically went for the past three days until one afternoon; Sailor Mars entered the study room he was using looking around for something. Katsuo poked his head up from the manual to address the visitor. "Is there something I can help you with?"

"Have you seen the Princess around?" asked the raven haired girl.

"No, I haven't actually." This was certainly strange as it was at this time that she would show up to visit him.

"_Venus to Mars, come in."_

She took out a small pink device which Katsuo recalled as the communicators used by the Senshi in the first season of the anime. "Mars here."

"_It's as we expected. The Princess has gone to Earth."_

There was a twitch in the Fire Senshi's eye. "Again?!"

"She caused all this commotion just to see that guy of hers? That's nutty," muttered the boy in the background while a tired sigh came from the other side of the communications channel.

"_Just meet us at the usual location so we can prepare to teleport." _Venus then paused for a moment. _"Wait, is Togashi with you? I think I heard him back there."_

"Yes, he is. Why do you ask?"

"_Bring him with you. We can make use of him for this mission. Venus out."_ And with that, the conversation ended before Mars turned sharply to Katsuo.

"You heard her, Togashi. Let's go."

"W-wait! What can I do to help you?" Despite his protests, he still got up and left his manual behind to accompany Mars so they could head to the location.

"I'm sure Venus has her reasons, even if I don't understand them." She kept her answers short as she would rather conserve energy for the upcoming task. "It's just retrieval, nothing we hadn't done before."

"I find it the fact that your Princess sneaks off to Earth on a regular occurrence a bit disturbing to be honest."

Mars shot a fierce glare at Katsuo. "I'll have you know that our security protocols are top notch! It's just that when the Princess truly sets her mind on something, there's virtually no stopping her."

He held up his hands to defuse the situation. "Sorry! So I guess that means she pretty much uses her high access security codes to open every palace door along the way before going down to Earth to see her One True Love?"

"She never actually had any codes in the first place," admitted the Fire Senshi while taking a left turn at a corner. "From what we can tell, she actually studied the security system, took advantage of any blind spots in the surveillance patterns and took off before we were able to patch it up! I honestly wish Princess Serenity would put that effort towards more serious responsibilities like her studies."

'High observational skills and the ability to detect and take advantage of openings? She's already Sailor Moon material. Now the question is how to steer her into that direction.' He filed that thought away for later as he and Mars finally met up with the other Inners just by the fountain located near the palace's front gateway.

"Glad you two could make it," greeted Sailor Venus.

"So how am I involved in this?" asked Katsuo while Mars had her own look of curiosity.

"Let me put this into context first. In the past, we teleported straight to Earth, retrieved the Princess and got back as soon as possible. A quick in and out operation. Unfortunately, this has contributed to strained relations between the people of Earth and the Moon Kingdom and the officials in Endymion's court demanded that the Moon Kingdom respect Earth's sovereignty."

"I guess they would also be annoyed at Princess Serenity's unannounced visits just so she could go date their Prince," stated the boy after hearing the blonde's explanation.

"You hit the nail on the toe!"

Katsuo raised an eyebrow. 'Huh… so even Silver Millennium Venus messed up idioms?'

"It's hit the nail on the head," corrected Jupiter.

Venus flushed briefly in embarrassment before continuing. "As part of a deal negotiated to help maintain diplomatic relations, we are only allowed to teleport to predetermined locations isolated from settlements to avoid spooking the local population. We also have to submit trip plans and get clearance from the Earth Kingdom as well. Obviously, these rules would not apply in the event of extreme emergencies like when the Princess is in genuine danger."

'How would they be able to tell if… oh, right.' He recalled that when Chibiusa first showed up being chased by the Black Moon clan, any time she got in serious danger, her crescent moon mark on her forehead would show up and fire a pillar of light into the air as a distress beacon.

Mercury brought up a holographic map. "For today's mission, we will be teleporting here to this forest which is the closest location to Princess Serenity's date. She and Prince Endymion will be approximately 5 kilometres away at the east end of the lake. You just need to get to her and hand her the Disguise Pen so she can travel back with you discreetly and not be recognized as a Moon Kingdom native by the locals. We'll provide you with a set of clothes so that you won't stick out too much. We'll also provide you with a communicator so you can contact us in case of an emergency. The communicator also has a function to send a distress signal back to the palace as well."

'So around a thirty minute jog and around a 45 minute walk back since Serenity will likely want to enjoy a leisurely stroll on the Earth.' Still, something bugged Katsuo and he needed to get this cleared up. "I presume there's only one Disguise Pen? Why can't you just toss on some Earth clothes and be able to blend in with the people below?

"Yes, there is only one Disguise Pen right now. And using a simple wardrobe change to disguise ourselves won't work," explained the Ice Senshi. "All the inhabitants of Earth seem to have some degree of psychic ability based on our observations. In all scenarios where a native from the Moon Kingdom tried to blend in with the crowd, they are identified fairly quickly and chased away. Only a disguise generated by the Disguise Pen will elude their senses. That's essentially the reason why any observers sent by the Queen to Earth gather data from a distance."

"But won't they detect me? I mean, I now technically live here."

"Even though you come from an alternate timeline, you are still technically born from Earth. Hypothetically, you should be able to walk among them freely."

After hearing Mercury's answer, Mars sighed to herself. "So that's how it is. Maintaining cordial relations is really troublesome."

"I can agree with you on that but the Queen has requested that we make every reasonable attempt not to further strain relations between the Earth and the Moon," piped up Jupiter. "We already have a lot of people on Earth who aren't too fond of us so I thank the stars every day that the ones in power on Earth are moderates and somewhat open minded."

The Fire Senshi couldn't argue that point. "Agreed."

Katsuo gave a small sigh of his own. "Let's just get this done quickly."

* * *

On Earth, it was a very sunny afternoon with warm temperatures making it for a pleasant day. All sorts of people from normal peasants to court officials themselves were enjoying the weather. All except one woman.

The woman was working diligently in her private workshop. She had long, wavy fire-red hair that reached her waist. Her outfit consisted of a white top that allowed her shoulders and lower arms to be exposed, a purple skirt and sandals. A chain of turquoise stones were wrapped around her waist and she even wore a stone around her neck and on her forehead. Finally, her earrings were made out of the same stones.

The stones weren't merely accessories. They were essential for the Sorceress Beryl to enhance her own natural psychic abilities and bring out her magic. She had used them ever since she began her studies in the mystic arts, learning to harness what natural abilities lay dormant in her. Her hard work ethic and dedication had caught the attention of the court where she was able to become an entry level Sorceress to further refine her talents.

It was there that she met him.

How much time had she spent just watching Prince Endymion go about his day? She can't remember. Just the sight of his handsome face took her breath away and caused her heart to beat harder. Her dreams and goals began to revolve around him with her deepest desire to become his wife and life partner. At the end of each working day, consisting of either doing magic research or navigating court politics to get much needed resources for that research, she would simply gaze at the Prince and remind herself that she needed to try harder tomorrow so that one day, she could take her rightful place at his side.

That was the life of the Sorceress Beryl until that accursed creature from the Moon came to Earth. Within a short time frame, she had stolen Endymion away from Beryl. Her hatred for that blonde girl knew no bounds. She wished she knew of a way to get rid of that Moon Princess but her power was nowhere near strong enough to overcome those who protected her.

Then one evening while working outside under the stars with her cauldron, she had an unusual encounter with an alien being made out of dark energy named Metallia. It then proceeded to tell her…

"_**You will gain enormous strength by invading the Moon. If you take the infinite power of the Ginzuishou, then you will be able to take control of this planet and the universe! All you have to do is reach out for it. Swear allegiance to me and I shall grant you power beyond imagination!"**_

Compared to the Beryl who accepted Metallia's proposal in a heartbeat, this Beryl was a bit more cautious thanks to her experiences in the Court where some deals went wrong for her which ended up costing her a chance to raise her status. Was this Metallia telling the truth or was she merely a parasite, a weakling looking to leech strength off someone strong? No, she needed proof of this creature's power and that it could actually help her achieve her dream. That is the only way she would kneel.

Upon hearing that, the creature simply responded…

"_**Very well. I shall send you your proof when the sun next reaches its zenith."**_

That was fine with Beryl. If this proof showed up at the right time, she could test it to her heart's content. If not, at least she got some work done. So she continued her usual routine until she saw reality begin to ripple in front of her. One second later, a humanoid figure appeared right in front of her table.

"You're… the proof of Metallia?" Beryl studied the figure closely which was clad in a predominantly blue and white body suit. Grey armour covered the shins, the forearms, the shoulders and the chest area. Around the waist was a golden buckle of strange design kept in place by the black strap. Covering the head was a strange looking blue and white helmet that contained a golden spiked frame at the front. The facial plate appeared to be made out of transparent crystal which covered a pair of green 'eyes' against a blue and white surface designed to look like a face. Upon closer look at the green eyes, they seemed to display symbols that she couldn't recognize that kept moving in a continuous direction. Like some sort of continuous magic spell. On the left side of his waist was what appeared to be a small case.

"That's right," responded the figure in a warped masculine tone. "But for simplicity, you can call me Acuto."

"Then, how do you intend to prove yourself?"

"Right now, the Moon Princess has snuck to Earth by herself without her Sailor Senshi. This is a chance to get rid of her."

Beryl's red eyes narrowed. "How? If you know anything about them, they will know that she is missing and rush to her side as soon as they arrive on Earth!"

"The attack will have to come from two directions," explained Acuto. "One shall focus on keeping the Senshi occupied and the other shall focus directly on the Princess. And it will be accomplished like so…"

He drew a card from the left case and gripped it carefully in his right hand before slashing it through a thin opening that was located at the top of his golden buckle.

**RIDE LEARNING! DIENDRIVER!**

The central portion of the buckle released a data stream which surrounded the card before it changed into an advanced looking gun.

Two more cards were then picked up from the case. "And now, to make good use of those cards that we borrowed from that kid."

Five seconds later, two sparks of light left the private workshop and split into two directions. Beryl stared at them for a while before looking back at the figure who dismissed his weapon. "What are those specks of light?"

"They are the ones who will fight for the sake of Earth…" There was a pause before Acuto's optics changed colour to red. "… and eliminate those invasive aliens once and for all."

**TO BE CONTINUED…**

**Honestly, I did say this was going to be low priority but the muse hit some ideas and gold so I'll go with the flow for now and work on this a bit longer. **

**So yeah, Ganbarider Acuto's in the game and he'll have his own set of unique cards to summon any Rider weapon or enemy weapon along with a few stolen cards from Katsuo. What other tricks does he have up his sleeve?**

**Laid down some groundwork to show that there are badass credentials lying dormant in Princess Serenity. She's gotta wake them up though. Also, tried taking a stab at showing the political situation between Earth and the Moon. Hoping that it at least made some sense. If not, chalk it up to being an AU.**

**As for Katsuo possibly getting a Decadriver later to be able to switch forms, that's a tossup right now.**


	4. That Man, Endymion

**Disclaimer: I own nothing about Sailor Moon or Kamen Rider. I only own my original character.**

**Fourth Step – That Man, Endymion**

Katsuo had to admit that the scenery around here really reminded him of Rural Japan.

There was a crisp blue sky, a lengthy dirt road and an occasional greeting exchanged with people who passed him by on the way to work on crops or other agricultural tasks that need to be done. As Mercury had predicted, he seemed to be able to move along fine without anyone noticing where he truly came from. His wardrobe was kept simple with a blue top, a black vest and pants and simple brown shoes which allowed him to blend in with the scenery. His vest had deep enough pockets to conceal his communicator and the Disguise Pen he would pass on to the Princess.

The boy found it a bit strange though how so many people could easily rally behind Beryl in the original source material. Did she have that much charisma? Or was it a simple use of her dark magic to do a mass brainwashing? Surely, there would have been some form of resistance somewhere or at least someone who should have stopped to think about things for a moment. Then again, controlling the masses can be easy if the proper propaganda tools were applied to appeal to the emotions in their hearts.

He shook his head to try not to think about it. A glance at his communicator showed that he had been jogging for about twenty eight minutes so he should be able to spot the couple from his current position soon. Just as he finished climbing that last hill, his eyes were able to spot the large lake and see the couple at the other side. While Princess Serenity was enjoying the sensation of the Earth's clean water and the shore's soil against her bare feet, Prince Endymion sat by the side simply watching her.

His appearance was pretty much a textbook definition of Prince Charming with short black hair, a strong masculine face with no trace of facial hair and deep blue eyes. His attire consisted of a deep blue royal military uniform along with black armour decorated with silver highlights covering his upper chest and shins. His cape hung from the shoulder pads while his sword rested at the left side of his hip.

As he got closer, Princess Serenity noticed his presence and waved at him. "Katsuo-kun, over here!"

He made his way over before speaking in a neutral tone. "I'm glad to see you safe and sound-"

"Of course I would be safe! I'm here with Endymion-sama after all!"

Good grief, that dazzling smile of hers was really throwing Katsuo off guard. But he had to stay firm and explain the situation properly so she would understand that it's time to go. "That may be the case but you did worry many people, including your bodyguards, back at the Moon Kingdom because of your unscheduled visit to Earth."

Her good mood fell a little upon hearing that. "But I wanted to see Endymion-sama so badly! And I bet that he felt the same way too!"

"Well, there are processes in place that should be followed to avoid further damaging the relations between our people," said Endymion, being a voice of reason. "You should make an attempt to follow them so that you don't cause trouble for others."

This caused the Moon Princess to pout cutely. "Aren't you supposed to be declaring that you wouldn't be able to function properly if you didn't see me soon?"

The dark haired young man merely laughed while the young boy sighed before he shifted position to show proper respect to the Prince of Earth. "I thank you for looking after the Princess while she was here, Prince Endymion."

"There's no need to thank me, Togashi Katsuo."

"You know me?" asked the boy in surprise.

"Princess Serenity has told me much about you this afternoon," explained the Prince while the Princess went to retrieve her shoes. "She has also informed me about the circumstances which brought you to the Moon Kingdom and the condition she found you in. I can only imagine how stressful that experience must have been."

"Indeed but Queen Serenity has kindly extended her hospitality and allowed me to stay at the Moon Palace. I'm doing what I can to repay that kindness which is why I'm here to act as Princess Serenity's escort back to the teleportation site where the Senshi are waiting." Katsuo reached into his vest pocket and produced the Disguise Pen. "Princess, you'll need this."

She reluctantly took it, not too happy at having to accept that today's date had come to an end. "Katsuo-kun, we'll leave in one minute."

"What do you need one minute for?"

"For one last cuddle with Endymion-sama!" explained the blonde Princess as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Katsuo fought the urge to groan. "I'll give you fifteen seconds. We can't afford to spend too much time lingering here."

"Thirty seconds! And I'm not budging on that!" came her counteroffer.

Wow, she really was aggressive when it came to her Prince. Then again, he did see evidence of that extreme side before when he and his sister did a Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon marathon earlier in the summer. That Princess Sailor Moon was seriously scary when it came to trying to reunite with Endymion. "Thirty seconds it is."

After giving a squeal of delight, Princess Serenity moved over to wrap herself around her man while Endymion merely shot a look of apology towards Katsuo before returning the embrace. As for the boy, he reached for his communicator and was about to make a call to update his status to the others when he heard a distinct noise.

**_SCHWIIIIIIING_**

'This noise… I know I heard this before.' He glanced back at the couple, wondering if they heard the same noise as well but they were lost in their own little world.

"Mmmmm… I can just spend forever in your arms like this, Endymion-sama," mumbled Princess Serenity.

'Where is it coming from?' His memory finally served him as it finally recognized the sound's origin. It was during one of the early episodes of Decade where Tsukasa had entered a world to become a lawyer or something. Lawsuits were decided with Rider battles in a Mirror World which can only be entered through reflective surfaces that were conceivably large enough for a human to fit through. And the only large reflective surface in the area was the lake.

Just as Katsuo realized that, a blur erupted from the lake, aiming itself at Princess Serenity. Without thinking about it, the boy rushed forward on autopilot in order to stop the attacker. The next thing he knew, he was flying in the air thanks to a powerful blow which collided against his chest. The last thought that passed through his mind before he blacked out was that he was pretty sure that attack shattered a part of his rib cage since it seriously hurt trying to breathe for those seconds.

"KATSUO-KUN!" While the Moon Princess broke off to tend to the boy, Endymion turned to face the attacker who landed on his feet. He was dressed similarly to the Prince with a deep blue leather bodysuit and silver armour covering the upper torso and shins. The main differences though were that the attacker had no cape and instead wore a silver buckle around his waist with the centre portion showing a golden bat against a black surface. His face was also completely concealed with a helmet and a silver striped visor which also had two pointed edges at the end that resembled ears on the top of a bat. His left hand carried a rapier in a reverse grip with the black handle guard decorated in a similar fashion to the bat.

"By my authority as the Prince of Earth, I demand that you identify yourself!" There was no answer from the mysterious knight. He merely tried to go after the Princess again but Endymion would have none of that and blocked his path. This finally caused the knight to begin attacking the Prince who merely guarded or dodged the various kicks and the rapier stabs that came his way.

While the Prince kept the attacker at bay, Princess Serenity reached the injured Katsuo. With her left hand placed on his chest to apply healing magic to repair his ribs, her right hand reached for the dropped communicator. She first activated the distress signal back to the palace so that her mother would know that there is trouble afoot. Then she opened a channel hoping to reach one of her Senshi. "This is Princess Serenity! Someone please respond!"

An image of Sailor Venus then popped up on the small screen in the right hand corner of the communicator. _"Your Highness, this is Venus. What's the situation?"_

"I was attacked earlier and Katsuo-kun got hurt protecting me! Endymion-sama's holding off the attacker for now but there could be other enemies! Please come quickly!" Her blood went cold though when she heard the sounds of battle at the other end. "What's going on back there?!"

"_GAH! What's with that guy?! He's so hard to keep an eye on!" _That was the voice of Sailor Mars voicing her frustration.

"_He's using his natural form to blend in with the forest and make it harder to track him. Mars, you must not use your Fire Soul here unless you seriously want to damage the Moon Kingdom's relationship with the people of Earth."_ With that cool delivery, that could only be Sailor Mercury saying those words. _"The good news is that I was able to pick up a possible weak point. If we can destroy that silver armlet on his left arm, that should weaken him substantially."_

"_Leave that to me!"_ boasted Jupiter.

"_As you can hear, we're under attack ourselves but we have things under control. As soon as we finish up here-"_ The blonde Senshi was cut off by a warning from Mercury.

"_Venus, watch out!"_

The Princess saw the shocked face of her bodyguard before an unknown male voice shouted out the name of an attack technique.

"_DAI SETSUDAN!"_

That was the last thing she heard as the screen went static. She felt quite shaken at this turn of events but she managed to keep her composure by focusing on her task of healing the boy. Thanks to her efforts, he slowly came to consciousness. "W-what's happening?"

"Stay still," instructed the Princess. "You took a major hit earlier so I need to concentrate if I'm going to fix you up properly, Katsuo-kun."

The pain was slowly subsiding. It still hurt trying to breathe but compared to his initial experience from a few minutes earlier, it was more bearable. He did look over to the shore where Endymion and the other figure were locked in combat. 'Kamen Rider Knight?! But… why?'

The last exchange of blows between the combatants ended with Knight landing a solid kick against the Prince's chest armour and sending him to the ground but rather than simply crashing, Endymion angled his body so he could roll on the ground for a bit and get on his feet quickly. When he did get to his feet, his right hand held several red roses, the iconic weapon linked to Tuxedo Kamen.

He threw them towards Knight who was ready to bat them aside with his rapier. Instead of that happening, the roses detonated as soon as they got in a certain range, dealing some minor damage and sending him backwards on the sand. Four more roses showed up in Endymion's right hand before he tossed them at his opponent. This time, Knight moved swiftly to avoid them but realized only two had been sent directly his way while the other two were aimed at the ground, landing right in front of his path.

"That guy predicted Knight's path…?" Katsuo was seriously surprised as the roses exploded again, putting Knight airborne and landing in a few feet away in front of the Prince on his back.

"Endymion-sama possesses a strong connection with the Earth and has considerably strong psychic abilities. This type of precognition comes naturally to him and makes him difficult to defeat on the battlefield," said the Princess, more than happy to gush over her Prince.

Meanwhile, Endymion prepared to end the fight and thrust out his open left palm at the enemy before unleashing a blast of energy from it.

Katsuo recognized the form that the energy took. He remembered seeing that attack in the manga as part of Takara's argument with him that that Mamoru was seriously underused in the anime. If what he saw was correct, then Prince Endymion can perform Tuxedo La Smoking Bomber without needing to get into a stance to focus his energy and yell out the attack name as he performs it.

As shocking as it is, what shocked Katsuo even further is Kamen Rider Knight moving to open the guard of his blade to reveal the card reader and slip in a freshly drawn card from the deck in the centre of his buckle. 'Advent cards?!'

**GUARD VENT**

Upon that card activating, a cape formed around Kamen Rider Knight before he draped it over himself. Even though the energy blast from Endymion connected for a successful hit, there was virtually no damage thanks to the cape which greatly surprised the Prince of Earth. "What sorcery is this?"

"Wouldn't you like to know? But that was a good attack plan you had back there." While Katsuo tried to determine if that voice belonged to the original Kamen Rider Knight or the AU version, the enemy merely got up and dismissed the cape before reaching for another card from his deck and slid it into the card reader.

**SWORD VENT**

The rapier was sheathed and a screech was heard in the air before a new melee weapon dropped into Kamen Rider Knight's hands which resembled a large black lance. "Draw your sword and show me more of your power as the Prince of Earth!"

* * *

"So what's happening out there?"

Acuto tilted his odd looking head in Beryl's direction. "Shouldn't you be able to view things with your own crystal ball or staff or whatever it is that you use?"

The red haired sorceress snorted once. "My scrying ability works if I have a familiar directly under my control on the field. I won't be able to see what those soldiers of yours are doing!"

"Is that so? Very well then…" The optics on his mask flashed yellow as he received updates. "Amazon is engaging those four bodyguards. Even though he has the field advantage in the forest, they are not going down so easily. As expected of the Sailor Senshi."

"And the Moon Princess? How did the attack go on her?" asked Beryl anxiously.

"I had thought she was alone on Earth but she has some company. One appears to be a village boy while the other is a warrior who identified himself as the Prince of Earth," reported Acuto.

"Endymion?! How is this possible? He shouldn't be out there at this hour!" If there was one thing Beryl prided herself on, it was how she meticulously memorized the Prince's daily schedule. At this time, he would normally be overseeing a military exercise with some of his men. The fact that he went to go see the Moon Princess as soon as she landed cemented two conclusions in Beryl's mind:

The Moon Princess is a bad influence on the Prince, clouding his thoughts and causing him to turn his back on his duties.

The King must be seriously senile to allow his son and the heir to the Throne to go off like that.

In any case, it was clear to Beryl that the current King must step down and a new King put into place to better protect the Earth's interests. Endymion has the qualifications but needs a suitable wife in order to stay focused and lead the people to a new age of prosperity. As far as the sorceress was concerned, only she had the qualifications to keep the Future King on track.

"So how do you want to deal with that Prince and that village boy?" Acuto's question snapped Beryl back to reality.

"The Prince is to be unharmed. Just get him away from the area and unable to interfere. As for that village boy… if he doesn't get in the way of your warrior's mission, there's no reason to harm him. If he does choose to interfere, kill him. We can place the blame on the Moon Princess for that somehow."

"Kekekeke!" The amused cackle from the Ganbarider echoed throughout the small workshop. "Well, isn't that an interesting way of handling things? Alright… we'll do this your way!"

* * *

"What is this? Is your skill with the blade truly that poor?!" While Knight continued to press the attack with his summoned weapon, Katsuo frowned a bit at seeing Endymion having trouble with defense, causing his black armour to show some signs of scratches and cracks.

'This is odd. I would have figured he would be better with a sword.' Then another thought came to the boy as he spotted the look on the Prince's face in extreme concentration, not showing a single sign of distress. 'Could he be focusing on something else which is taking away his attention from the fight?'

"I have you now!" shouted the dark blue knight.

"Who has who, I wonder?" In a flash, runes flared around Endymion's sword before he brought it up to meet the weapon of his enemy. As soon as the powerful blow made contact with the other weapon, the summoned weapon from Knight's Sword Vent card was shattered. In addition, Endymion's counterattack retained momentum to strike Knight's chest armour, causing sparks to fly and the Rider to tumble back.

"Yes! As expected of Endymion-sama!" exclaimed Princess Serenity, briefly slipping into the role of a cheerleader while the enemy slowly got to his feet.

"I see… you were occupied preparing your special technique to the point of being willing to take some damage on your armour to finalize your move. Very well done…" He trailed off for a moment as if getting mentally distracted by something.

"Surrender now. You know that you cannot defeat me," stated Endymion coolly.

"Honestly, I would have liked to conclude this properly…" Knight drew his rapier again and opened the weapon's guard before grabbing another card from his buckle and inserting it in. "… but I must put business first."

**ADVENT**

And before the Prince of Earth could react, Darkwing swooped in at its maximum speed of 900 kilometers per hour and snatched Endymion, taking him away to places unknown. That only left Knight, Katsuo and the Princess in the area. The boy quickly got up to his feet, ready to fight the enemy. The healing magic had repaired most of the damage from the earlier blow with the only lingering pain being some chest spasms. Nothing he couldn't handle though.

Serenity was able to pick up his intentions much to her alarm. "Katsuo-kun, you mustn't!"

"I'm not letting anything happen to you," replied the boy, keeping himself steady.

"I'm only interested in the girl. Step aside and I won't harm you," said Knight in a calm tone.

"That's not happening!" Katsuo was then forced to move as Knight closed the distance in an attempt to attack him in the same area that the Rider had hit earlier. He managed to graze the boy a bit but it was enough to cause the spasms to hinder him again. Deciding not to press things for now, the Rider got back into a neutral position.

"Tell me something. What is it that drives you to fight for her? Money? Political power? Love? You're out of luck on that third one though since she already has a Prince Charming."

"What are you talking about?!" growled the boy.

"All humans have desires. That's why they fight," said the Rider, echoing a certain Kanzaki Shiro's words. "To achieve a feeling of self-satisfaction. So don't tell me that you don't have any desires."

"It may be true that I have desires but desires don't have to be purely selfish!" shot back Katsuo which caught Knight off guard.

"What?"

"People can also possess selfless desires to help someone in need! You don't have to step over others in order to obtain that sense of self-satisfaction! But since you're so damn curious about the reason I fight, it boils down to one simple desire: the desire to do the right thing!"

"Punk, who do you think you are?"

Just as Knight asked that question, a sphere of light suddenly appeared in front of Katsuo with Princess Serenity recognizing the magical signature. "That's Mother's spell! She must have responded to the distress call!"

Once the light died down, Katsuo found his right hand carrying the Diendriver, freshly built from the laboratory of the Moon Palace's engineering team. His left hand held one single card which caused Knight to let out a small gasp of surprise. "That's…!"

The boy merely brought up the Diendriver and proudly displayed the Diend card with his left hand. "As that man would say… I'm just a passing through Kamen Rider! Remember that!"

Without hesitating, he slipped the card into the Driver before sliding out the end of the barrel.

**KAMEN RIDE!**

As the standby siren started playing, Knight tried to rush Katsuo but the youth simply aimed the gun towards him and yelled a single word…

"Henshin!"

… Before he pulled the trigger, firing several blue projectiles which smashed into the enemy Rider.

**DIEND!**

They didn't do too much damage but their main purpose was to provide distraction and cover while the transformation was completed. When Knight looked up again, he saw that the boy was now clad in a black bodysuit with cyan patches on his sides with gold lines on him. He also had bulky upper armor shaped like the lines of a bar code and a cyan helmet with cyan lines on his lens.

"The soldier that protects irreplaceable treasures, Kamen Rider Diend has arrived!"

It's official. When an 'In the name of the Moon' speech comes naturally to him, it's a definite sign that he's in the Sailor Moon universe.

**TO BE CONTINUED…**

**So here we show off some of Endymion's badass credentials, reveal Acuto's summoned Riders and get to Katsuo's first henshin and the beginning of his debut battle. And yeah, you can clearly see the cues where 'Parallel World' and 'Fight in the Man' would get played if this got shot as a real episode.**

**Quick questions for you all: How many stolen Rider cards should Acuto have in his possession? Who would be among those stolen cards? I don't want there to be too many and create a 'Rider of the Week' scenario. I only need a few decent ones to create interesting battles or contribute to plot development so let me know who can do that.**

**Even though there were signs of positive reception earlier, I'm pretty disappointed that the last chapter only got 2 reviews. So I'll likely put this on break again and work on other things unless a good number of reviews flow in.**


	5. Don't Fear The Reaper

**Disclaimer: I own nothing about Sailor Moon or Kamen Rider. I only own my original character.**

**Fifth Step – Don't Fear The Reaper **

The stables were quiet at this time of the day. All of the horses were outside grazing in the large empty field with plenty of space to move around except for one black horse. He was called Tornado and served as the personal mount of Prince Endymion. Right now, he was being groomed by a young stable boy in the palace's stable, focusing on combing the tail hair of the animal. "And there we go! Heh, your tail hair reminds me of one of those Senshi! I think it was that fire one that visited one time. Seriously, she was a hottie!"

The horse simply snorted once and continued drinking the water from his bucket.

"Maa… I guess you wouldn't care about those-" The stable boy trailed off as he spotted someone near the entrance on the other side. It was a man in his mid-twenties who had long white hair. He wore a standard grey Earth Kingdom military uniform but with the tunic partially opened at the top, revealing a small bit of his pectorals. In addition, he had a white cape attached to the back of his uniform. His short sword was sheathed and strapped to his hip. "Lord Kunzite!"

"At ease, young man," said Kunzite calmly while briefly gazing around the area. It was rare for one of the Four Kings of Heaven, especially the highest in rank and by far the strongest, to visit the stables. Even when soldiers were mounting their horses and getting deployed, they would be doing it outside and after the stable staff have finished placing saddles and bridles on the animals. "Have you seen Prince Endymion around here recently?"

"No, my Lord," answered the stable boy honestly.

"I see. Carry on then." Just as the general was about to depart the area, a screech in the air was heard which caused him to stop. "What was that?"

The next thing both he and the stable boy knew was that something had been dropped from the sky into the large pile of hay close to the stable entrance. Kunzite had his hand on his sword ready to handle the situation but something within the hay moved before a head with messy black hair popped out.

"My Prince?!"

"Kunzite…?" Endymion looked a little dazed but was otherwise fine. He quickly accepted Kunzite's offered hand and got out of the hay pile.

"What happened?" A thought came to Kunzite's mind, fueled by his suspicions about the Kingdom on the Moon. "Was this the doing of the Moon Princess?!"

"She would never…!" His blue eyes widened in horror. "Oh no… Princess Serenity and that boy are alone with that evil warrior! I must get back to them quickly! Prepare my horse!"

"Yes, your Highness!" While the stable boy moved quickly to equip the animal with the saddle and bridle, Endymion removed his dirty cape and tossed it aside before he looked at his loyal retainer.

"Kunzite, get the others on standby in case the situation escalates," ordered the young man as he sheathed his sword and headed towards Tornado.

"Yes, My Prince." Regardless of his misgivings about the other Kingdom, Kunzite would put them aside for the sake of his Prince.

Within a minute, Prince Endymion and his trusty steed took off to head back to the lake where the Princess must certainly be in danger.

* * *

When this battle was over and the adrenaline wore off from his system, the first thing that Katsuo planned to do is have a colossal fanboy freak-out. This must be how real life fans who eventually got to be actors on a Kamen Rider show must have felt but this feeling was far more intense. After all, he actually got to transform into a Rider instead of merely pretending to be one for a TV show. And this was a Rider form that he had used constantly in his eighth grader delusions.

Usage of the Tesla Bands came naturally thanks to his study of the operation manual during the last few days. His bursts of speed combined with his precise strikes developed from years of martial arts training allowed him to put pressure on Knight and force him on the defensive. But even with how hard Katsuo hit, Knight's armour was highly resilient and keeping him down wasn't easy. It wasn't long until the enemy began to adjust to Katsuo's speed bursts and began countering appropriately with his own rapier strikes, causing the youth to tumble a bit after taking a hit on his chest plate.

"Katsuo!" The Princess looked concerned but he immediately responded to her.

"I'm okay!" First he had to regroup and resettle his mind. He laid down some cover fire while repositioning himself to stand close to Serenity. 'Okay… I might need a little help for this one.'

Katsuo's left hand instinctively moved towards his card case and flipped it open. 'First, I need one other Rider to help fight Tall, Dark and Batty over there. Finally, I need one Rider to protect the Princess. If possible, he needs to give off the same vibe as Prince Endymion so that she can put some trust into her protector.'

The Diend system responded to his thoughts and caused two cards to stick out from the case. He grasped them quickly and looked at who he picked up. 'A bat for a bat and a Rider with the same live actor as PGSM Endy? They'll do.'

**KAMEN RIDE: KIVA!**

**KAMEN RIDE: IBUKI!**

After loading those two cards into the Diendriver, he pressed the trigger to fire out two balls of light which then formed into the respective Riders. Kiva had his default ruby red form with red and silver upper torso armour over a black bodysuit. The colour of his Omnilens was yellow and he had the Catena Chains wrapped around his lower right leg. As for Ibuki, he was in his default Oni form, predominantly black but with blue 'gloves', a golden looking vest and a belt which contained his tools. His face mask was completely grey, encased in a blue frame which sported small pointed ends pointing inward to the face. Finally, the top of his head sported a golden crown with the forehead section showing an Oni face. He carried his weapon in his right hand, a firearm that resembled the rotary valve of a trumpet.

"Ibuki, guard the Princess! Kiva, you're with me!" Upon giving the orders, Diend and Kiva went on the attack against Kamen Rider Knight while Ibuki stayed near Princess Serenity. Now that he had to square off against two Riders, it made it harder for Knight to concentrate and keep track of Katsuo's movements like he did before.

"You cheap brat!" shouted Knight just as he was knocked back by Kiva elbowing him in his chest armour.

"Deal with it!" Just as the boy said that last sentence, he leapt into the air and dived down for a quick Rider Kick but Kamen Rider Knight rolled to the side and in the process of rolling, grabbed another Advent Card.

"In that case, I can play the number game too!" Opening up the guard of his rapier, he slotted the new card in.

**TRICK VENT**

At once, four additional copies of Kamen Rider Knight split apart from the original. Two copies charged Diend and Kiva while the other two copies and the genuine Kamen Rider Knight himself tried to go after the Princess. While Ibuki was there to skillfully keep them away from the Princess with his shots and his combat skills, Katsuo knew that all Knight needed was one opening. 'I can't take any chances!'

After blocking an overhead strike from the Knight copy with his outer right forearm, Diend shifted his position and landed a roundhouse kick clockwise with his left leg which landed on the rear of the enemy to briefly knock him away, enough for the boy to use the brief time to do what he needed to do. Then his left hand went to the card case and drew the card he wanted which was loaded into the Diendriver.

**ATTACK RIDE: ILLUSION**

He pressed the trigger and it shot out a speck of light which then split into four copies of Diend, ready to lend a hand. One copy moved to block off the Knight copy that Katsuo kicked away earlier while the other three copies moved to drive the other Knight copies away from Ibuki and Princess Serenity. Slowly, they maneuvered themselves so that all of the Knight copies and the genuine Knight were forced closely together in a group.

The multiple copies of Diend and the lone Ibuki moved up front and all raised their firearms for a combined barrage of shots against the Knight clones which destroyed them. Before Katsuo could join in for his own attack, his systems alerted him of a fast incoming object. Already having a feeling on who it would be, he used his Tesla Bands and just barely reached Princess Serenity, keeping her away from Darkwing's grasp as it swooped in and tried to snatch her.

"Wah!" She let out a startled gasp while Diend pulled her back to where Kiva was standing. Since he couldn't change forms as a summon and wouldn't be able to bring out his own firearm, he simply stayed back.

"Sorry about the rough handling back there." He looked back at the enemy who had his Contract Monster floating just above of him and drew out another card from his buckle before loading it into his weapon.

**NASTY VENT**

"…!" Katsuo immediately drew a card from his own case and loaded it into the Diendriver.

**ATTACK RIDE: BARRIER**

He pressed the trigger on his weapon to shoot out the protective dome just as Darkwing began emitting a super powerful sonic screech that shattered the Diend copies and heavily damaged the Ibuki summon. It only lasted a bit longer before it got shattered as well. The sonic screech continued to travel towards Katsuo, Kiva and Serenity but the barrier held itself together. After all, if it could withstand Kamen Rider Black's Rider Punch, then the attack from Darkwing shouldn't be an issue.

"Give it up! You can't win here!" called out Katsuo from behind the barrier.

"Won't know for sure until I play my last card," replied Knight darkly as he drew the last card from his Advent Deck and slipped it into his rapier. Based on the golden bat logo against the blue background on one side and the fact that Darkwing was in position, Katsuo could tell that this would be a card used to activate a Rider Finishing Move.

**FINAL VENT**

"Gonna fight all the way to the end, huh?" asked Diend in a rhetorical tone before flipping his card case open just as Kamen Rider Knight began running forward, his previously damaged lance-type sword from Endymion reforming in his hand while his Contract Monster swooped in behind him to form a cape. Without hesitation, he loaded the card into the Diendriver.

**FINAL FORM RIDE: K-K-K-KIVA!**

"This will only hurt for a sec." Katsuo fired the shot directly behind Kiva who began to transform into a large bow shaped somewhat like Kivat Bat the Third, with an arrow resembling Kiva's sealed Hell's Gate leg and Kivat's main body along with stretched wings making up the bow. Knowing that time was of the essence, he drew the card he would need to activate his own finisher just as Knight leapt into the air, nearly colliding into a hawk during the jump, and flipped into position for the cloak to wrap around his body. Upon plucking it out of the case, Katsuo slipped it into the Diendriver with Knight beginning his descent and changing into the form of a giant drill to impale the enemy.

**FINAL ATTACK RIDE: K-K-K-KIVA!**

"Hold this for one second!" After passing his Diendriver to the Princess, Katsuo grabbed hold of the Kiva Arrow in the same crossbow position as Kaito did when he used the same weapon. He then began pulling back to charge his shot and stayed focused on the descending enemy Rider, ignoring the additional effect of day turning into night and the only light in the sky being that of a crescent moon. He didn't even notice the the four Inner Senshi teleporting right to their Princess.

"_**KIVAT IKUZE!"**_ Just as Kivat's voice echoed from the weapon, the tip of the arrow split open with the Catena Chains releasing the Hell's Gate. Katsuo also knew that was his cue to take the shot and did so with the powered up arrow colliding with Kamen Right Knight's drill form, causing an explosion of gigantic proportions in the sky.

'It's over…' The Kiva Bow disappeared from his hands and he let out a large exhausted breath of air while the sky returned to normal. As soon as he turned around to retrieve his weapon, he finally noticed the other Senshi right beside the Princess. "When did you all get here? And more importantly, why didn't you get here earlier?"

"You could say we were occupied with another friend of yours," remarked Jupiter as she took out a card and pressed it into Katsuo's hand. He gave a startled gasp when he saw that it was the Kamen Rider Amazon card from his Ganbaride card collection. "He left this behind when we finally took him out."

"That's…!" A strong gust of wind blew in the area, causing him to notice another falling card heading his way which turned out to be the Kamen Rider Knight card. It was definitely his with the way the edges were a little worn due to repeated use in the machine. "This one too…?"

"It seems that you have a connection with how this attack unfolded," said Mars which worried the young boy. Her tone seemed to suggest that she was accusing him of everything. Thankfully, she did see how his body language indicated that he was a bit intimidated so she softened up her approach. "We know that this isn't your fault but at the least, we're going to need your help to get to the bottom of this."

"O-of course! I'll co-operate fully with the investigation!" He tried to shake off the shock and cocked back the end of the Diendriver so it could release his transformation.

"Princess Serenity!" The group all turned around to see Endymion's horse gallop into the area with a very worried Prince of Earth riding the beast.

"Endymion-sama! I'm glad you're okay!"

He quickly brought the horse to a stop and dismounted before approaching and hugging the Moon Princess tightly. "You're uninjured… oh, thank goodness!"

"On the bright side," began Venus, trying to look on the positive developments. "I would say that was a good field test of that armour and gear of yours, Katsuo-kun."

"Did you feel anything off when you used it?" asked Mercury, looking to get some feedback.

"No. It really responded to the way I wanted to move." A thought came to him thanks to the battle. "I do have some ideas for improvement. Maybe we can discuss them later?"

"I'm fine with that." The blue haired young lady then turned her attention to her Princess. "We must leave now, Princess Serenity."

"I understand." She reluctantly left her Prince's embrce and took her place beside Katsuo as the four Senshi formed a perimeter around them and joined hands to combine their powers for a teleport back to the Moon Kingdom. Just as the teleport began to take effect, the boy remembered something important and tried to shout it out before he would vanish.

"Prince Endymion, beware of that sorceress Beryl!"

That was as much as the Prince heard before they all disappeared from his sight. While he made his way back to his horse, his thoughts were on what the boy said. 'Is she somehow involved in this? What does Katsuo know about her?'

In any case, he would have to do some investigation on his own. Perhaps his four loyal retainers would be able to look more into the woman that the boy had named.

* * *

"So much for your warriors," muttered Beryl angrily. Once she had seen the end of the battle and the end of Kamen Rider Knight through her hawk familiar, she shut off the link to have a chat with her visitor.

"Give me a little slack here," complained the Ganbarider. "We both thought that was a normal village boy with the Princess when in reality, it was that tagalong kid that got dumped at the Moon Palace. And to think that he would actually be able to transform… seriously, how could I have anticipated that?"

"Whatever the case is, they both failed!"

"And you suppose you can do better?" challenged Acuto, his tone hardly changing. "All you can do right now is use animal familiars to be your eyes and ears on this planet. Perhaps in a few decades, you might be able to create powerful warriors of your own much like the Riders I summoned but by that time, I'm certain that your Prince would be a happy husband to the Moon Princess and the father of her children."

The red haired sorceress growled. "Damn it all!"

"If you don't want the Moon Princess to be victorious, then swear yourself in Metallia's service. She will provide you with the tools you need to rally the people of Earth behind you and support your ascension as Queen. In addition, I will be at your disposal and you will be able to make use of the other Kamen Riders to achieve your goals."

"Are they as incompetent as this Amazon and Knight that you summoned earlier?"

"To be fair, the enemy displayed a fair amount of resourcefulness in both battles. As for the competency of Knight and Amazon…" He trailed off before he produced a shiny looking silver card. "Touch this and judge for yourself."

As soon as she took the card, she could see replays of the battles that Amazon and Knight were involved in. With Knight, she saw how he was able to handle the Prince of Earth while with Amazon; she saw how that wild warrior hardly got affected by certain magical attacks of the Senshi. It was only when they started coordinating themselves properly to target the accessory on his left arm that the battle turned around. "This is their power…?"

"Indeed." He took back the silver card from her hand and put it away.

In almost a split second, her bad mood dissipated as her sight came back to reality. "You have more of these Riders?"

"Yes, I do!" The optics on Acuto's mask lit up briefly before he reached for his card case and produced two small piles of cards. One pile got placed next to Beryl's crystal ball. "Here are the Rider cards that came from that kid and can be summoned at any time."

"What about that other pile in your hand?"

"Right now, there are some compatibility issues with these cards. I have to convert them to a suitable format for my summoning device to accept. It shouldn't take me too long though and soon enough, you'll have additional Riders at your service… assuming you choose to serve Metallia."

"I will serve her," answered Beryl with the vision of Amazon fighting the Senshi still dancing around in her head. "As long as those Riders will answer my call."

The features of Acuto's face mask changed so that it looked like he was smiling as he retrieved his cards. "Splendid! We'll do a more formal ceremony later to acknowledge your service. You have something more important to do right now."

The sorceress had a puzzled look on her face. "What do you mean?"

Acuto held up a small crystal shard and pressed it into the young woman's hand, causing her to nearly stumble as another psychic image flashed in her mind. It was an image of the Moon Kingdom's mysterious armoured warrior bathed in the light of the crescent moon and about to fire the charged up arrow with the tip coated in blood red energy. "You have to warn the people of Earth about the Moon Kingdom's new Kamen Reaper."

"Kamen Reaper? I'll be spreading this fearful image to the common people?"

"While you're spreading fear, you'll be spreading hope as well," explained the Ganbarider. "As you know, hope is the antidote for fear. If you're seen as the Earth's hope, then the hearts of the people will rally around you. Especially when they see you bringing forth Riders who will fight the White Queen to their last breath."

It didn't take long for that thought to put a smile on Beryl's face.

**TO BE CONTINUED…**

**Well, this took a bit longer to get out because of other things that swung in the way of my life and the muse. I do appreciate all the support and reviews from the previous chapter and I hope the trend continues.**

**Similar to Movie War 2010, defeated Riders that were originally Katsuo's cards do return to their card form and are brought back within his deck. Still toying with how many stolen Rider cards will be at Acuto's disposal.**


End file.
